The Best Medicine
by SqueamishAnchovies
Summary: Medicine Melancholy moves in with Marisa and Alice! And here her troubles begin. Fantasy violence, mild gore, Yuri elements. Enjoy!
1. One

It was a dark and stormy night, and Medicine Melancholy was all alone.

Not that she cared. Medicine preferred solitude to bad company, of which the world had plenty.

She sat in her cottage on Nameless Hill, reading by candlelight about her favorite topic, poisonous plants. "_Convallaria majalis_, a sweet-scented blossom commonly used in folk remedies, when ingested can cause nausea or vomiting or even..."

The door rattled. Just the wind?  
Medicine heard voices outside. She shut the book and peered out the window.

A plushy lump prodded her in the small of the back. "Visitors?" A doll floated and flitted around Medicine, its stitched mouth grinning. "Oh, goodie. Can we kill them? Please?"

"Shush, Su-san." Medicine squinted out the window, but the pouring rain blurred her view. Lightning flashed—two figures stood at the foot of her hill. One figure wore a pointy hat.

"You stay here," Medicine murmured. "I'm going out to take a look."

"Without _me_?" Su-san wailed. She bumped into a hatstand. "Hey! Are you gonna be all right? What're you taking with you? Poison gas, poison darts, poison—"

"Su-san. I believe I can handle two trespassers."

Medicine donned her cloak and went outside.

Rain thudded into the flowery hill. Water spilled from flooded gutters, gushed from the rooftop and plopped into flowerpots, or oozed downhill to make a muddy river out of the gully.

Medicine ventured into this storm, wind whipping at her cape and muck sucking at her shoes. She spotted the visitors lingering at the edge of the swollen gully. "Who goes there?" she called. They waved back. As they approached, she debated how she would kill them. Gas?—no, the fog would dilute the dissipation process. Darts?—too dark, she'd be too likely to miss. Then what? Her doll limbs jangled. The answer came to her. The poison blades hidden in her hollow arms. Yes. Medicine had not fought hand-to-hand in quite a while.

"Who's there?" Medicine repeated. She moved toward the visitors. Though her plastic body felt no cold, she suffered in other ways. Rain seeped into her joints, which would stick if she didn't attend to them soon.

The figure with the pointy hat called out. "Hey, you! Hate to bother you at this ungody hour, but we're horribly lost. Any chance you could let us spend the night?"

"No chance," Medicine said. "Go away."

The waving hand fell slowly. The one with the pointy hat hugged the shivering mass beside her. "Don't worry, Alice, I've got you." She turned back to Medicine. "Now look what you've done. You made her cry. I won't forgive—"

Medicine sprang. Her hands detached—two blades shot out—and she thrust through the pointy hat. It was empty.

Medicine whirled around in bewilderment. The girl stood behind her, hatless, holding her companion. She panted. Rain streaked her blonde hair and soaked her black dress. The girl raised a hand. "Sister, you pissed off the wrong witch."

The night exploded with light.

Medicine dodged the first volley of spells, cartwheeling on her blades. The witch followed the first with a burst of bright yellow bubbles. They exploded in proximity to Medicine, showering her with mud and soot. Medicine circled away. The witch was good.

Nor was she done. The witch released a flock of homing bullets—flitting in from two directions, the chittering shots forced Medicine to squeeze into a point directly in line with her opponent.

The witch grinned. "Master Spark!"

The energy beam blasted Medicine's left arm off at the shoulder. It dropped with a plop in the mud. Without flinching, Medicine charged the witch in a zigzag pattern, scowling and yowling.

Medicine's persistent thrusts drove back the witch. Cursing, the witch grabbed the remaining arm and twisted it. The arm popped off at the elbow—another poison blade gleamed on the stump. Medicine stabbed.

The witch slammed into her and shoved her to the ground.

They splashed in the mud and muck, drenching their clothes, splattering their skin. The witch rolled over top of Medicine. She straddled Medicine, wrenching off her other arm.

"Now _this_ is more my style," said the witch with a smile. She held up the knobby length of Medicine's right arm. "A doll, huh? I know someone who'd love to take you apart. No, that's not a threat. That's a fact. I want to know what makes that nasty body move..."

Medicine struggled under the witch in vain. Her mind raced. The witch's fat bottom pinned nearly everything below the waist. In cold desperation, Medicine jerked to reverse her knee joint. Blades sprang from the front of her feet—Medicine kicked. But the witch caught her by the ankles, ripped off Medicine's legs. She tossed the useless limbs aside.

"You're good," she said. "But I'm better."

As they lay in the rain, moisture seeped into Medicine's abdominal cavity, reducing the poison powder inside to slurry. Medicine gritted her teeth.

The witch never budged. She called to her companion, "It's safe, Alice! I got her!"

"What is she?" The other girl approached cautiously, trembling in trepidation.

The witch cackled. "I thought you might be able to tell me. She's a doll, but not like any I've ever seen." She stroked Medicine's short gold hair. Medicine shrank from her touch. "Such pretty eyes," the witch murmured, "like blue silver." She looked toward the cottage. "Let's get you inside, Alice. The storm's getting—"

Jagged lightning cracked the sky. Medicine lunged—she sank her teeth into the witch's hand. As deadly poison seared her nerves, the witch let loose a scream. The other girl, Alice, shrieked, "Marisa!" and came running. With a satisfied smirk, Medicine lay back.

The witch hunched over, heaving and gasping and grasping her hand. Enraged with pain, she struck Medicine in the face with her good hand. And again. And again. And—

"Stop!"

Alice took the witch's hand. She let the witch lean on her shoulder. "You're hurt. We need to get you warm and dry." She half-walked, half-dragged Marisa to the cottage. The whole way, the witch howled and moaned. Her bitten hand had already swollen and blackened.

Rain pelted Medicine's fallen form. Her dress was ruined, her body demolished. She could not last much longer. In her current state, she could not put herself back together again. But Medicine found no small comfort knowing the witch would die screaming in agony.

The rain stopped. Medicine opened her eyes. Had the storm passed?

Alice stood over her, still carrying the witch. She had come back. "You," she said. "What have you done to Marisa?"

Medicine shook with bleak laughter. "Exactly what it looks like. I poisoned your bitch of a witch. _Osculum mortem_, from the spiny sea sponge. She'll die within the hour. Slowly. And very, very painfully." Medicine relished the sheer fear in Alice's eyes.

To her surprise, the fear vanished, replaced with burning determination. Alice shifted Marisa on her shoulder and grabbed Medicine. "You're coming with me." Hauling the doll by her hair, Alice dragged Medicine through the rain toward the cottage, faltering step by faltering step.

Alice threw open the door.

"EEAAAHHH!"

Letting loose a fierce battle shriek, Su-san swooped and flung a flowerpot at Alice. Missing, it smashed on the floor. After Alice swatted the doll out of the air and stuffed her in a birdcage, she dragged Medicine and Marisa inside. Exhausted and sopping wet, the little girl collapsed in a chair.

Sprawled carelessly on her back, Medicine could see the scene well enough. She frowned. "That's my best chair you're ruining."

Alice scowled in return. "Well, sorry for ruining your best _chair_." Having had her rest, she sat up the witch in the chair, poisoned hand in her lap. The hand wound throbbed dark and bulbous. Alice could hardly look at it.

The girl's hands lifted Medicine's body. Alice pushed Medicine's nose into the witch's wound until Medicine could smell the very flesh rotting.

"Talk," Alice hissed, but her voice quavered. "What have you done to her?"  
Medicine smiled weakly. "I already told you. _Osculum mortem._ Deadly poison, acts almost immediately. Shall I tell you what it does? First it deadens the motor neurons, so that the body cannot move. But it leaves the pain receptors—those stay to the bitter end. Once injected under the skin, the venom kills the cells by spreading an enzyme that causes rapid aging. The cells decompose prematurely, the process accelerated by the poison. I must say, it raises an awful reek. The tropical natives call this blemish the 'stink spot.'"

"Then what?"

"From the skin cells, the poison spreads to the bloodstream, where it dissolves the walls of the veins and arteries. Massive internal bleeding. It slows the process through the body, but not for long. Once the infection reaches the heart, lungs, or brain, the victim is done. Like I said, most last less than an hour." Medicine grinned. "But long before then, the victims succumb to hallucinations or even severe memory loss. Best say goodbye to your witch, while she still remembers who you are."

Alice didn't move. She dropped Medicine, who fell to the floor with a thunk.

"No." The sobs started. Alice buried her face in Marisa's muddy skirts. Her small fists pounded the ground. "No! No! No!"

Medicine savored the sight. She lived for moments like these. To top it off, she finished, "There's no known cure."

"That's not true!"

Alice's attention snapped to the birdcage by the fireplace. Su-san rattled the thin wire bars. "There is one, there _is_ one! You were just telling me about it! I remember, because Medicine, you are _so_ mad when you found out about it—the white moon lilies, I mean—you stomped around the house for hours and shouted at the walls and then you yelled at me, which I'm still a little mad about, so when you were destroying all those flowers I snuck one away and tucked it in the back of the greenhouse where..."

Su-san clapped a plush hand over her mouth flap. "Oh. I said too much again, didn't I? Sorry, Medicine."

Medicine shot the doll a murderous stare.

Alice's tears disappeared. With new hope, she dashed to the greenhouse, which she found behind the kitchen. But she returned in despair. "There's _hundreds_ of white flowers!"

"Keep looking!" Su-san encouraged. "White, moon, lily. Remember that!"

Medicine growled. "Su-san. The _moment_ I can hold a needle again, I'm stitching that fat mouth _shut_."

"I'm stuck up here, and you're stuck down there, and there's nothing either of us can do about it, so nyeh!" Su-san stuck out her fuzzy felt tongue. Medicine seethed.

Alice returned with more white flowers, but Su-san shook her head—not the right one. Not that one either. Nope. Nope. Try again. Nope. Nuh-uh. Doesn't that look more pale yellow than white?

"I'm _trying_!" Alice cried, throwing down the latest flowerpot. It shattered—Medicine cringed, not from the noise, but at the prospect of replacing her albino alpine daffodils.

The witch stirred. She opened her eyes, and Alice rushed to her side. Blinking blearily, the witch smiled. With her good hand, she stroked Alice's cheek. Alice fought back tears.

"Is that you," the witch mumbled, "master?"

The shock on Alice's face made Medicine want to burst into laughter.

"Master, it's been so long since I've seen you," the witch whispered, her face blissful. "I've been with a few others since then...oh, all right, _many_ others. But I never loved any so much as you..."

Gently, Alice pried the witch's hand away from her cheek. "Try not to talk," she choked. Alice sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

The witch's eyes narrowed. "You're not Master..."

"Yes," Alice whispered. "Yes, I'm Alice. Remember me? Alice?"

"Elis? No, that can't be, you're dead. Mumu? Patchy? Yu—"

Alice pressed a finger to the witch's lips. Clearly the girl couldn't bear to hear any more. She dried her eyes and tromped back to the greenhouse.

Medicine watched in solemn silence.

Quiet strength. She had heard the words, but never seen them acted out. The witch was like a soldier, brash and blunt and always leading the charge. Alice was like a nurse. She carried a private burden, relied on the soldier for protection, and seemed weak and timid by comparison. But when the soldier was wounded, the nurse showed her strength. She stayed by the soldier's side, never leaving, never sleeping. She shared the pain, and shared the joy when her soldier became strong enough to fight for her again.

Alice returned from the greenhouse carrying a small white flower with shiny petals streaked with silver.

"Yes, yes, that's the one!" Su-san cried, bouncing up and down, shaking her cage. "That's the—_whoa_!" The cage tipped over and fell with a clang. Su-san sat up, dizzy. "All right, now to apply the salve. I'll show—"

Su-san's snagged on a ragged point of the wire cage. The doll ripped open, spilling out fluffy stuffing. She squeaked and squealed. "Ow. That really hurt. It shouldn't have, but that really hurt!"

Alice put down the plant and went to help the doll. She gingerly unsnarled Su-san from the wire and laid her across her knee. Alice dug around in her pockets.

"W...what are you gonna do to me?" Su-san sobbed, squirming.

"Fix you. So lie still." Alice took out a needle and thread. She looked to the witch. "I can't do this alone. I need your help."

"But your friend doesn't have much—_eep_!" Su-san winced as the needle pierced her.

Alice grimaced. "You first. I have no choice."

As she watched, Medicine's eyes widened. The way Alice threaded the needle, the way the tip looped and plunged and pulled tight the separate flaps. The distant glow in her eyes, of a master craftsman at her art...

"You." Medicine nodded to Alice. "What's your trade?"

Alice regarded Medicine unblinking. "I'm a dollmaker."

Of course. Dollmakers would always carry a needle and thread. A thought stirred in the back of Medicine's mind. Maybe she knew...

"I need a mortar and pestle."

Alice blinked at Medicine. "What?"

"Mortar and pestle," Medicine snapped. She wriggled on her belly toward the chair where the witch lay dying. "There's not much time. Any longer, and the antidote won't have any effect."

Su-san turned. "Medicine, what are you—"

"Mortar and pestle!"

Silence hung in the air.

Medicine sighed. "Bowl and mashy thing."

Alice fetched one from the shelf. Following Medicine's instruction, Alice put it on the floor in front of her.

"Good," said Medicine. She clenched the pestle in her teeth. "Now put in the lilies. Just the flowers, none of the stem! Good, very good. Hold on a minute." With a lot of nodding, Medicine ground the flowers into gray mush.

Sweat beaded on the witch's forehead. Her breaths came in short, sharp gasps.

"Tie off her arm so the poison doesn't spread. You have a tourniquet?"

Alice had stockings. They sufficed.

Soon Medicine finished making the remedy. "Now take off her dress."

Alice flushed. "How dare you—"

"Do it!"

Embarrassed, Alice slipped off the witch's wet clothes. A sarashi and a loincloth covered the parts humans considered shameful.

Dark red blotches ran up the witch's arm. The wound stank like a dank crypt.

"Not good," Medicine muttered. She glared at Su-san. "Get me some sewing scissors. Sharp ones." As the doll scampered off, Medicine turned to Alice. "You're going to have to cut her open."

Alice splutteed. "How can you even _say _that?"

"If you know a better way to drain subcutaneous inflammation, speak up."

Scissors poked into Medicine's side. "Got 'em, boss," Su-san said.

"Give them to her. She'll have to do it."

Medicine stared into Alice's eyes, read the hesitation. "You want to save her life? Do as I say."

Alice did.

While Medicine guided her, Alice slid the blade of the scissors into the wound. "This violates every health and safety code ever devised," Medicine muttered. "Continue."

Alice snipped through the diseased skin up to the tourniquet. She was alarmed how easy it was, the skin thin and flimsy like moist rice paper. The witch hardly stirred.

"She feels the pain, I assure you," Medicine said. "She just can't respond to it. Now apply the paste..."

White moon lilies. A panacea, a parting gift from the moon's most brilliant chemist. Medicine watched the last one in the world save a witch's life.

Alice dabbed the last of the lilies onto the incision. Black goo oozed out and dripped on the floor. That'll stain, Medicine thought.

When they ran out of paste, all they could do was wait. Rain drummed on the roof to mark the time.

Alice cradled the witch under her chin. "Master," the witch mumbled, eyes shut, "everyone...it's so great to see you...but I have to be getting back. Alice needs me. I love her more than anything in the world..."

Gradually, miraculously, the witch's skin turned pale and pink while they watched.

The witch's eyes fluttered open. "Alice?"

Alice screamed for joy and embraced her, laughing. The witch laughed too, somewhat more nervously.

Medicine sighed. She stretched on the floor, minus arms and legs, only a head attached to a waterlogged trunk.

Su-san patted Medicine on the head. "You did the right thing."

"I know," Medicine muttered. "I can't stand it."


	2. Two

"...And that's how everyone became friends," Alice said. "Say hello to Medicine, everyone."

"Hello, Medicine," the dolls chorused in broken unison.

On a sunny day in Alice's doll shop, Medicine Melancholy suffered through a tea party that swarmed with dolls, each with their own tiny cup and saucer. The dolls took thimble-sized sips or reclined on puffy cushions, looking pretty in their frills and dresses.

Medicine hated every minute of it.

"Is your tea too cold, Medicine?"

Alice cast an inquisitive expression across the table, over the bouquet and the steam seeping off her tea. She blew into her cup to cool it, making little waves. "Mine's too hot. We can trade, if you like."

"No...thank you."

Medicine chose her words carefully around Alice, like picking rotten grapes out of a cluster. The girl, though timid, possessed a selfless strength that Medicine held in awe, yet never bothered to instill in herself. Then there was that other thing—she was a dollmaker. Maybe she knew it, the thing that Medicine had sought for years, decades, longer than she could remember.

Maybe she knew who made Medicine Melancholy, and why.

A doll with a soul...the soul of a ruthless killer, but still a soul.

"Don't see what's wrong with it, Alice. Mine's fine."

Marisa Kirisame, the witch with a bandaged left arm, slurped down her tea in one quick gulp. Speed at the cost of efficiency—stray Earl Gray spilled down her chin, splattered on the table, or dribbled on her chest. Scolding her, Alice dabbed the latter part with a napkin, much to Marisa's delight. Though she promised not to, she'd be sure to do it again. Beaming, Marisa held out her empty cup. "Refill!"

Medicine narrowed her eyes. The witch sickened her.

Then why did Medicine save her life?

Good question. Temporary insanity? Medicine was no longer sure. But seeing Alice smile warmed parts of her heart that Medicine never knew she had.

Had she gone soft?

Dolls clambered all over the table, laughing and playing. They chased each other around the chinaware, dueled with sugar spoons, or tumbled into the bouquet of roses that Marisa had picked—or rather, conjured. Medicine caught her in the middle of the spell but said nothing to Alice.

"Shanghai! Hourai! Really," Alice sighed, "you need to learn some manners!"

Medicine clasped her teacup but did not drink. She had no stomach for it.

And as of late, she had no weapons, either.

Once Marisa recovered, Alice moved Medicine to her doll shop, where she gave Medicine legs and arms without poison or hidden blades. Medicine thanked her. Inside, she felt empty.

Except for...

Medicine bent over her teacup and started to cry.

"You're...so kind," she choked, tears flowing freely. "Throwing a tea party for me. And I...I...I've been so cruel. Attacking everybody who so much as came near my house. I realize...now...I must've really hurt those people. With my poison. But you—"

Tears trickled into Medicine's teacup.

The dolls flocked around Medicine, patting her to cheer her up. Even Alice moved to embrace her new friend. "There, there," Alice whispered, "we all do things we regret. Did I ever tell you my story? The one time I danced and nearly destroyed Gensokyo?"

Medicine shook her head and sniffled. "No."

Alice smiled warmly. "It doesn't matter. I've forgiven you."

Medicine shared in the smile. She dried her eyes on a cloth napkin, then stashed the napkin under the table. The damp rag melted.

"Here." Medicine held out her tea to Marisa. "I don't want this. Would you accept this? As a peace offering?"

The witch regarded the gift suspiciously. Her thoughts were easy to read—You did something to it, didn't you? Didn't you? Dolls don't cry. How stupid do you think I am?

"Please," Medicine added. It was an offer she couldn't refuse.

"Go on, Marisa, be polite," Alice urged.

Yes, take it. It'll be quick.

Sleeping potion. She wouldn't feel a thing. She'd drift off and never wake up. Alice would never suspect a thing, and Medicine would have Alice all to herself.

Take it, Medicine thought. Take it, you dumb bitch!

Assuming the world's least believable smile, Marisa kindly refused.

Medicine persisted. "No. I insist."

"I said, no thank you."

"I said, I insist."

"Still no."

"I _insist_!"

"I resist your persistent insisting."

Alice sighed again. "Well, if no one else wants it—" She reached over and snatched the cup from Medicine. She put the cup to her lips...

Their eyes bulged.

Marisa lunged over the table, spilling the teapot and the bouquet—chinaware shattered, dolls scattered. As casually as she could manage, Medicine "slipped" and smacked the poisoned cup across the room—it smashed against the wall—and slapped Alice on the back. Alice spewed the contents of the cup straight in Marisa's face, leaving both parties equal parts confused, embarrassed, and thoroughly drenched.

Medicine fanned herself.

"W...what?" Alice stood shivering, soaked to the skin. The tea party lay in ruins. Dolls peeked out of hiding to see if the worst was over. It wasn't.

Alice broke into sobs.

"I'm sorry, Medicine. I try to do something nice, but it all just—oh, it's all my fault!" She fell to her knees, bawling. Marisa rushed to comfort her. Medicine watched.

Marisa wrapped her arms around Alice and hugged her tight. "Shh. It's okay. It wasn't your fault, not really." She shot an acid glare at Medicine, who glared back.

"Let's get you out of that wet dress," the witch continued. A wicked grin lit up her face. "I know..."

The witch whispered in Alice's ear. Alice flushed crimson. "In the middle of the day?!" she spluttered. "Are you—" But Marisa silenced her with a wet kiss.

Medicine gagged and turned away. "I'll clean up this mess," she muttered while the girls slipped into another room to change into something more comfortable.

Sighing deeply, Medicine un-set the table. She swept off the china shards, replaced the vase, refilled the bouquet with water, washed and put away the remnants of the tea set, and finally stuffed the tablecloth in the laundry pile with Alice and Marisa's moist dresses. The little dolls helped out too.

Her work complete, Medicine collapsed on a couch to sulk.

It hadn't worked. Her last resort had failed. Now the witch would stick around to muck up everything. What could Medicine do to be rid of her?

Marisa emerged from the other room, wrapped in a bedsheet and nothing else.

"How did it go?" Medicine almost asked, but thought better of it.

The witch sashayed with fresh self-assurance, slinking like a minx. She snatched Medicine by the collar and thrust her up against the wall.

"You tried to poison me," Marisa hissed, her breath hot and heavy. "Again. And you already saved my life once. Can't you make up your damn mind?"

"Really, I don't know what you're—"

Marisa pounded Medicine's head on the wall. Medicine quit resisting.

"All right," Medicine managed, "I might have slipped something into the tea. Something not exactly healthy. What of it?"

"Let me be clear," Marisa said. "Alice trusts you with her life because you saved mine. But you can't fool me. I happen to recall why my life needed saving in the first place!" Marisa tightened her bandaged hand, which grasped Medicine's collar.

Medicine began, "I never meant to—"

"Shut up! Not another _word_ out of you. I don't know what you want from us, but I want you gone. I'll let you stay, for now, but remember this—if you EVER try to hurt Alice again...I'll kill you. For good this time."

Marisa let Medicine drop. The witch's fist brushed the doll's chest. The witch gave a twisted grin. "Awfully well-developed for a doll, aren't you? Whoever made you put a lot of thought into the unnecessary details. Like tears."

"Why else do you think I'm here?" Medicine muttered, smoothing her rumpled collar. Though she was shorter, she could stare Marisa right in the eyes without ever blinking.

Marisa's gaze softened. "You want to find out who made you, don't you. I see now." She leaned in to press her forehead to Medicine's. "Then quit dithering and go ask Alice. Don't waste your time trying to kill me again."

Medicine fidgeted. She wormed her way away. "Marisa, you're—"

The witch's arms barred her on both sides, trapping Medicine between the wall and Marisa. A wicked gleam glowed in the witch's golden eyes.

Medicine gaped. "You're serious. You'll really flirt with anything that moves, won't you?"

"And a few that don't." The witch leaned even closer.

The sheet fluttered to the floor...

"Um...am I interrupting something?"

Alice crept out in a new blue dress. Marisa whirled around, pulling up the sheet to cover herself. She beamed. "Only teasing, love." She passed Alice, put a peck on her cheek, and returned to their room.

Medicine and Alice shared the awkward silence until Marisa came back.

* * *

"As long as you want to help out, you might as well make yourself useful."

After two or three pushes, Marisa jostled open the door to the magic shop, and sunlight slanted into the dim room. Dust swirled around her feet.

Medicine gawked at this mess of a house. Under a thick skin of dust, books and brooms and bloomers and things without names littered every available surface, from floor to tables to bookcases to ceiling. Stacks of music and mystic tomes stood in a teetering tower that nearly reached the roof, making room on the bookshelf for a family of stuffed wombats, glass eyes wide and pleading. Medicine kicked a mound of apple shavings, and out rolled a cracked crystal ball. Something nudged the back of her head; she turned and gasped. A human skeleton dangled from the ceiling, decked in dust and cobwebs and poofy pants.

"We call her Bob," said Marisa, flicking the skeleton so the bones rattled as it swung. "Makes the place feel more magical, don't you think?"

"Bob," Medicine repeated, incredulous. "_Her_?!"

Marisa reached into a deflated pumpkin and dug out a rusty key, which she presented to Medicine.

Medicine took it warily. "What's this go to, the crypt where you keep the others?"

"Close. Broom closet, actually. Not the flying type, either." Tossing her hat onto a grinning badger skull, Marisa collapsed into an armchair. It wheezed a gust of dust, making Marisa cough. "Almost missed this place," she murmured. As suddenly as she went down, Marisa got up and slapped a feather duster in Medicine's hand.

"Here's how it is," the witch said. "I'm low on cash, thanks to all these tea parties and things. I'm reopening the shop in three days, so I'll need the place spick and spiffy by the day after tomorrow. I'm trusting you with this. You said you wanted to make it up to Alice, and here's how you can. I'm sure you'll do great." She flashed a grin which added, Or else you'll find out what sorts of horrible magic I'm capable of, such as instantly scattering your body across six different continents.

Medicine took the duster without a word of complaint.

Marisa waved as she went out the door. "So long. Just want you to know, good luck. We're all counting on you."

Medicine began, "Wait, but what about—"

But Marisa was gone.

Grumbling and mumbling, Medicine surveyed the wreck of Marisa's magic shop. The mess loomed, even seemed to breathe.

Medicine sighed. She'd never gotten to talk to Alice after Marisa showed up, then Marisa dropped her here. Not one question. To ask who might have made Medicine, or even thank Alice for putting her back together after Marisa blew her apart. The witch got between them.

And now Marisa was making Medicine clean her house.

Though furious, Medicine suppressed her feelings, bottling them up like bitter poison. Yes, the witch would taste poison again. All Medicine had to do was—

The heap of junk _moved_.

Medicine jumped, terrified she might be right that the mess was actually alive. The heap rumbled, and rustled, until finally...

One of Alice's dolls crawled out, a stupid grin sewn on its face.

More than anything, Medicine wanted to punt the little wretch across the room. "You," she said. "What are _you _doing here?"

The doll shook her head. "It's not just me!" She whistled, and half a dozen other dolls poked out of the rubble.

If she had a heart, Medicine's would have sunk.

"We're your helpers!" chimed the leader, who looked like a tiny copy of Alice—same blonde hair, same blue dress. The Alice lookalike pointed to an identical doll. "I'm Hourai, and that's Shanghai. Pleased to meet you!"

"What's _your _name?" Shanghai squeaked sweetly.

"Medicine Melancholy," croaked the name's unfortunate owner.

Hourai hopped closer. "That's a sad name. Who gave it to you?"

"A Bradbury fan, apparently. Can we get to cleaning already?"

The six dolls nodded with great gusto. "Absotively pasolutely!"

While the dolls dashed off to do their duties, and Medicine crept outside.

She got as far as the outhouse when an excruciating shock shot through her body.

"Oh, you found the border," came a doll's voice.

While Medicine writhed on the ground in pain, Hourai hopped up on the windowsill. "Miss Marisa gave you that gift around your neck to make sure you don't run away. Please try to go too far, or it'll explode. That'd really be bad."

Cursing, Medicine clawed at the collar around her throat. When did that get there? Whatever it was, it refused to budge. She wriggled back inside the barrier, and the shock wore off. Medicine collapsed in an exhausted, exasperated bundle of doll parts.

"Best hurry up," Hourai said, "or else Miss Marisa will be mad when she gets home." The doll leaped back inside to get to work.

Medicine lay out on the ground, moaning. Not only was Medicine asked to clean, she was enslaved.

Aching down to her core, Medicine limped inside and took up a broom. Clean the house? She'd show that witch a clean house!

She attacked the mess.

Since she needed no sleep, Medicine and the others worked night and day. Days and nights, morning and evening, the whole of time blended.

As fun as it was to clean a magic shop, Medicine would have been done sooner if she had not received so many visitors.

At noon the third day, a heavy fist hammered on the front door. Startled, Medicine dropped the glass bat she'd been examining, which caught itself in midair and flapped away.

When Medicine answered the door, there stood the shrine maiden, red-faced, raunchy, and rowdy. She held a bottle of sake in either hand. "Yo, Marisa!" she slurred. "Been a while, ain't it? Nearly a whole week. Yeah, long time. Listen, I'm down on my luck lately, and I've been craving some of your special magic..."

She stopped and looked down at Medicine, who watched and waited.

"Who the hell are you?" the shrine maiden demanded, bloodshot eyes studying Medicine. "You ain't Marisa."

Impeccable observation. This must be Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden. Really? Truly? Our savior, the drunk hobo.

Reimu lurched to lend a bottle to Medicine. "Wanna drink? You almost look old enough."

"Get that poison away from me." Medicine shoved her away.

Reimu laughed raucously. "I like this kid!" She ruffled Medicine's hair, pouring sake on Shanghai in the process. The little doll dropped in a puddle of hiccups and hazy ramblings.

"So that witch and Alice finally got around to adoption," Reimu continued, oblivious to Medicine's smoldering stare. "I always told 'em they should. Bout time they did, too. Finally got someone to help out around the house. Now I want one."

Please, just leave, Medicine's eyes begged. But instead her mouth said, "Don't you have pressing shrine maiden business to attend to?"

"Ha! Depressing, more like. Yet another youkai uprising, tomorrow after tea. Explosive porcupines infesting Eientei, can wait till the weekend. Just stopped an alien invasion, nearly blew up the moon _again_—but for me, it was Tuesday. My highest priority now is sake, sake for sake's sake!"

With a hoarse cheer, the shrine maiden fell over on her bum. She had some trouble getting up, seeing that she was unconscious. Hourai's attempts to sweep away the body met with little success.

Medicine massaged her temples. Meeting the witch's friends was never part of the deal, but it did explain a few things.

The dolls dragged away the body and crammed it in a cupboard until they could think of a better place to put her.

Around sundown, there was another knock. Medicine set down Marisa's lavishly illustrated picture diary to answer the door. She greeted a green-haired girl with a frog hairpin and a snake on her braid. The girl fidgeted, contributing to the mutual discomfort.

Medicine squirmed too. "Um...can I help you?"

"Have you, er, had anyone come by lately?" the girl asked. "Seen any shrine maidens, maybe?"

"Can't say I have," said Medicine, gaze flitting to the cupboard. Still asleep. Phew. "Depends who's asking. Are you a tax collector or an axe murderer?"

"Another shrine maiden," the girl replied. She sniffed stiffly. The reek of sake hung pungent in the air. "Are you _sure_ she hasn't been here?"

"Who?"

"Oh, no one." The girl's nervously expectant smile drooped and dropped off her face.

She seemed so depressed that even Medicine wanted to help, or at least put her out of her misery. "If I should see this 'no one,'" Medicine said, "is there a message you want delivered?"  
The girl brightened. "Yes! Please tell Reimu—well, if you happen to see her—Sanae misses her...and wants to apologize. For things I've said. How I said she's a stupid drunk who tramples on other people's feelings."

"I'll do that," Medicine said. "In case I see her."

"Thank you." With a bow, the girl turned and left. Before Medicine could close the door, the girl called, "One more thing! Just because I'm apologizing doesn't mean I'm letting her get away with it. I expect a full apology from her as well."

"Of course," Medicine said. "It's only fair."

Bowing again, the green-haired girl left.

Medicine shut the door at last.

"Who was that?"

"AHHH!" Medicine cried, suddenly jumpy. The shrine maiden squinted at her through bleary weary eyes. She'd found her way out of the cupboard, and tracked dirt on the clean floor besides. Dolls followed in her footsteps with brooms and dustpans.

Medicine calmed. "That was no one."

Reimu wrinkled her cherry-red nose. "Really? Sounded like Sanae."

"Oh yes! That was her name. If you hurry, you can probably catch her."

"What, she want something?"

"She wants you to apologize."

The shrine maiden's face flushed an even deeper shade of red. "That _snake_! After all she's done!" Clenching her fists, Reimu stormed after her and slammed the door.

Medicine cracked open a window. The sweet music of heated quarreling wafted inside. She savored the moment.

"That wasn't very nice!" Hourai said, hands on her hips. "If anyone should apologize, _you_ should. Right now."

Not about to take flak from someone six inches high, Medicine replied, "She left my presence without a lethal dose of strychnine in her system. I'd call that an improvement."

Sullen and sulky, the dolls returned to work.

After dark there was another knock at the door.

"Gods' sakes!" Medicine snapped, flinging down Marisa's lucky star chart. "Now what? How does that witch get a moment's rest when everyone's always—"

The door swung open, and she froze in horror.

"Ayayayaya! Aya Shameimaru, tengu journalist, at your service!"

The crow-winged girl threw herself down in an exaggerated bow. Her black eyes sparkled with mischief. Extracting a notebook and pen from her white button-down shirt, she advanced on Medicine.

"So, were they here, eh? I've been following all day—well, stalking professionally, but whatever—but I never expected them to turn up _here_!" Aya took a look around at the dusty magic shop, and she barked a laugh.

"Who?" said Medicine, tired of questions and doubly tired of visitors interrupting her.

"You don't know?" Aya smacked herself in the head. "Duh! Only Gensokyo's highest-profile couple in the history of ever! As in, the reason my magazine circulation no less than _tripled_ in recent weeks!"

Medicine found herself overwhelmed with a sudden onset of not caring. "Sorry to say, but Alice and Marisa aren't here. Try again some other time. Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"Wait, who? Those two?" Aya scoffed. "Please, they're old news! I'm talking about the shrine maidens! You know, the ones who were just here? I saw them come in, I swear! They claim they're just friends, but we know better, don't we?" Smirking, Aya scribbled in her notebook for no good reason. "The team's still working on a portmanteau couple name that sounds good. ReiSa, SaMu, MuNae...we eally like MuNae, because it sounds like _mune_, which we all know means—"

"Are you finished here?" Medicine interrupted.

The crow girl paused. "Say, do I know you?"

"No."

"Interesting. Any chance you know Medicine Melancholy? You bear a curious resemblance. You know, the famous serial killer? Living doll, lives in a creepy house on Nameless Hill?"

"I get that all the time," Medicine seethed.

Aya babbled on, "Cause if you are, we should totally do an interview. Like, right now. You busy? Never mind. First question: What's the most gruesome way you've ever killed anyone?"

She was about to find out if she stuck around any longer. But a shrill shriek stopped everything.

"Get her, girls!"

The dolls attacked Aya by pelting her with potpourri, shouting and swarming and flinging innocuous insults. "Your mother was a carrier pigeon!"—"You tell her!"

Aya recoiled from the barrage. "Ow! Hey, stop—ow! Quit it! Ack! Blech, it got in my—ow!" She spread her wings. "Maybe I'll—ouch!— come back at a time—ow!—more convenient for you. Toodles!" She took off and took to the skies.

Hourai raised a tiny fist after here. "And don't you dare come back!"

Shanghai, still a tad tipsy, howled assent.

Medicine only looked at the mess they'd made. Yet another sigh escaped her. "At least the room smells nice now."

They cleaned up the last of the clutter.

The house was spotless when Marisa arrived.

"Nice!" the witch said, despite her need to be unimpressed. In search of something to criticize, she traced a white glove over the topmost rafters and prodded her stuffed wombats to test their elasticity. "Very nice," she finally decided. "Good work, dolls!" She petted Shanghai and Hourai, who gleefully lapped up the attention.

Medicine gritted her teeth in a pained smile. "I helped too!" she wanted to say, but she knew the witch would ignore her. Three days and nights of nonstop housework, plus disposal of unwelcome guests, deserved better than a lukewarm reception.

"You did well too, Medicine," Marisa added as an afterthought.

However, when Alice came inside, her face lit up—hers to see the house, and Medicine's to see Alice. "Oh, it's lovely!" Alice cried. She pulled Medicine into a hug, which surprised the doll to the utmost extent. "You've done a wonderful job! Thank you, thank you!"

"Does this mean more tea parties?" Marisa quipped. She pointed a look at Medicine which said, Don't think this excuses you of anything—I'm watching you.

Alice released Medicine. Determination formed on her face. "I think I'll go take a bath." She headed toward the bathroom, with Marisa promising to join her soon.

There went Alice—should Medicine ask her?

The words spilled onto her tongue.

"Alice!" Medicine said, stumbling over her words, "C-c-could I ask you something?"

"Sure." Alice lingered outside the bathroom, edging closer with each passing moment. "What is it?"

"I was wondering...if, you know...if you knew...if..."

"Yes...?"

Medicine spit it out. "Alice, do you know who could have...made me?"

Alice blinked. "A dollmaker?"

"No, I mean..."

This was more difficult than Medicine thought. She tried again. "I mean, I've lived in that cottage for as long as I can remember. I don't even know how I got there. So, as a dollmaker, would you know...who might have...you know...put me there?"

Alice rubbed her chin, then shook her head. "I don't know many other dollmakers. But you're like no doll I've ever seen before. Smart, thoughtful, and honest." She smiled warmly. "I'm sorry I couldn't answer your question. But I'll look into it, I promise."

Medicine nodded tightly. "Yeah. Thanks."

Whistling a cheery melody, Alice wandered off to her bath.

Rough laughter prickled Medicine's ears. She turned.

"Smart. Thoughtful. Honest." Marisa applauded sarcastically, wearing a snide smile. "Personally I prefer cunning, devious, vicious. But my dear can think whatever she wants." She stalked toward Medicine and cowed the doll into a corner. "I've kept Alice from you as long as I could. If three days' hard work hasn't quelled that killer instinct, then it should be enough to remember I am a witch. I can and will make your continued existence intolerable should you show the slightest hostility to my precious Alice." Marisa tugged meaningfully on Medicine's collar. "Remember that. And don't blow yourself up—that thing was expensive." With that, she went after Alice, tittering and snickering.

Medicine Melancholy was all alone.

Having nothing better to do, Medicine retreated to the bedroom the other dolls prepared for her. Not to sleep, which her plastic body hardly needed, but to find time to herself, away from the revoltingly happy couple.

How long could those two act like newlyweds? Medicine thought it was ridiculous.

Medicine stretched out on her bed in the dark room, hands propping up her head. Her wrists creaked—she had to grease her joints soon. This pathetic body was not designed for heavy housework.

Medicine stared at the ceiling.

"What am I doing?" she wondered aloud.

Would getting close to Alice cure her curiosity about her origins? Or only make it worse? Was the effort worth the risk? Medicine seldom took interest in others, except for trespassers and how long they would take to die. Interest in herself was another matter. Who created the doll with a poisoned soul? How? Why? As Medicine pondered these questions over the years, she found she could only distract herself with extracting exotic new poisons, or better yet testing their effectiveness on unsuspecting unexpected visitors. When that failed to satisfy her, she dug in her garden of missionaries and traveling salesmen.

Why lie here, when she could go back to the life she knew?

Everything was Marisa's fault.

That witch kept Alice to herself. She had kept Medicine busy with pointless chores while the two lovebirds frolicked in the flowers, or whatever it was they did together. What more did Marisa expect from her? Medicine dreaded the thought of actually running the magic shop, fawning to customers and pawning worthless trinkets to their puny unprepared pocketbooks. She felt sick.

There was tapping at the window.

Medicine jolted out of bed, terrified by the mere suggestion of more knocking. She went to her window. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

She opened the window, and a pebble smacked her in the face.

"Oops! Sorry!"

Medicine looked out her window, where she saw nothing, then down at the ground.

"Su-san?!"

"That's right!" The doll beamed. "I finally found you!"

Su-san hauled a huge trunk big enough to fit Medicine, or even Marisa if they cut a few corners.

Medicine pointed. "Is that...?"

"Yup!" Su-san replied. She clicked off the clasps and threw open the lid. "Your favorite limbs, plus the tools to make the switch! Let me tell you, it took an awfully long time to drag this thing all the way from the cottage! It rained a couple nights back, you remember, and then there was this drunk oni that wouldn't leave me alone. But I finally found you, which makes me so happy, 'cause it means we're going home now, yay!"

"How did you even get away?"

Su-san giggled. "Easy! I'm a genius! That, and they forgot all about me after they left with you. Makes me kind of sad, but I'm not sad anymore now that you're here, Medicine!"

Medicine smiled faintly. "Here, that looks heavy. Let me help you get that in here."

Su-san swiveled bashfully, then helped Medicine pick up the trunk. "Aww, Medicine, you're being way too nice, stop it."

"Yes." Medicine paused to think—the trunk dropped on Su-san, pinning down the poor flailing doll and muffling her squeaks. "Yes, I think it _is_ time I stopped being nice."

With Medicine pulling and Su-san pushing, they lugged the luggage inside, where it dripped rainwater and smeared mud on the clean floor. Medicine smirked; clean _that _up.

The array of appendages inside the trunk thrilled Medicine. She assembled a new body from the spare parts. First the arms, containing poisoned blades, hidden cords, claws, rakes, darts, and other nasties. Next the legs, with rotating knees and spiked heels, and then the torso with its reservoir of poison gas. Medicine replaced her eyes and teeth, and she added a tongue that literally dripped acid.

Last, Medicine unscrewed her head using special tools and stuck it on the poison body. Marisa's explosive collar slipped off.

"Good as new!" Su-san said happily, but her smile died as she saw Medicine's frown. "What's wrong? Can we go home now?"

"Not yet," Medicine murmured, looking around at the clean room. "Not yet. One more day. Then it ends." She smirked, flexing her fingers. "Tomorrow, we'll throw a housewarming party they won't soon forget."


	3. Three

**Author's Corner:** _The famous short story "A Medicine for Melancholy," so famous I'd never heard of it till__ embarrassingly__ recently, concerns a young girl in eighteenth-century London, a girl afflicted with __a mysterious illness__. Her case flummoxes six professional physicians, so her desperate family brings the girl outside so that hundreds of London pedestrians can __name their other __remedies. As the crowd of self-styled physicians swells, the parents charge admission to hear the people's cures, and __make four hundred pretty pennies on it. But the illness remains. So they put her out at night, under the full moon, checking up on her every quarter hour. That night, a troubadour swings by with a lute and a smile, and he sings the girl back to good health. The message, put forth by the ever-cheery Ray Bradbury (of book-burning _Fahrenheit 451 _fame), is that the cure to many of life's __troubles __can be found in love and laughter and music. A pleasant moral to a __pleasant__ story._

_ This story doesn't end that way._

* * *

The day dawned innocently enough.

Birds twittered, squirrels chattered in the treetops, and girls flocked to Marisa's Magic Shop for the grand re-opening.

The owner herself hawked her best-selling wares out front—"Love potions! Love potions, the cheapest around! Give your lady love a night you'll never forget, but she might! Love potions!"—while a certain mischievous ice fairy hawked frozen loogies from her perch above the store entrance.

Youkai and humans mingled around the shop, adding much to the buzz of activity. Even a ghost or two wafted through the place, through the store, through most anything.

While these niece people were enjoying themselves, Medicine stood at her post by the checkout desk, looking all serious and seriously bored. Secretly she restricted a wicked chuckle, knowing that these poor fools would never knew what hit them.

The guests plucked goods off the shelves faster than Alice could restock them. The girl worked tirelessly, welcoming visitors with her winning smile, then rushing to restock a shelf of spilled goods, and mopping up the resulting stain when a cat youkai decided that a bird youkai had looked at her funny and deserved to be eaten.

Medicine just took money.

"Hey." Su-san squirmed in her pocket. "When are you, you know, gonna make with the vengeance?"

"Soon," Medicine murmured. "When the time is right." Though that time was a mystery to her as much as anyone else.

A voice politely intruded upon her sphere. "Excuse me."

A purple-haired girl with a wicked-looking scythe plunked a stuffed lion head on Medicine's counter. The lion sported bright blue gemstones for eyes, diamond-studded fangs, and a frizzy mane dyed green for no apparent reason.

"I want to buy this," the girl said, "but I'm not sure exactly what it is."

"It's a Cat-Napper," Medicine replied at once, reading the name off the numbered inventory. She guessed the rest: "It takes naps for you in the middle of the day when you'd rather do something else, like play outside or keep your job. That, or I think it might steal the souls of children. Maybe both." Medicine spoke with the crucial combination of slitted eyes, puckered lips, and clenched teeth that invariably communicates to a customer, _I don't know what the hell that thing is, so hand over your money and shoo_.

The girl thought a minute, scratching her head with the tip of her scythe. "Hmm, that could be really useful." Medicine never asked which use she meant—the girl already went for her wallet. "How much?"

Medicine blurted an outlandish sum. The girl stared at her. More meekly, Medicine cut the price in two. The girl happily paid the price and took her prize. Medicine's eyes bulged at the sight of the ancient gold plates in her hands—she hurriedly stuffed them where none of the other customers would ever find them. Marisa either, for that matter.

With a satisfied sigh, Medicine eased into the side benefits of running a retail outlet.

"Haven't you heard the saying, Don't cheat the reaper?"

Reimu Hakurei wandered to the checkout desk, nothing with her except a throbbing hangover.

"Never heard that in my life," Medicine replied. She'd paid her dues—in her time, she'd given the reapers plenty of business. "Now are you going to buy anything or just stand there?"

Reimu laughed bitterly. She held out her hands, red and wrinkly. "You see any money? I don't see any money. Let me know when you figure out where the free money factory is." Sniggering at her own bad jokes, she tromped off with more inane and insane mutterings. Medicine carefully made sure she left.

Business moved briskly. Though she hated the place, Medicine found herself enjoying the fast pace more than she cared to admit. Though the urge to gas every idiot in the room never wavered for an instant.

Whoever said "There are no stupid questions" obviously had never worked with customers.

"Hey, is this so-called 'quicksilver' _really_ as quick as you say it is?"

"I've got a toothache, can I get a discount?"

"There was _dust_ in the corner, young lady! Tell the owner she should be ashamed of herself! Tell her she should fire whoever cleans up here. I'd tell her myself, but I don't speak to witch-folk."

"There's a fairy outside spitting phlegm at people!"

"Here, I broke this, so can I get another one for free?"

"Newspapers! Get your free newspapers, right here! Extra story for paying customers: 'The Rocks in the Road to True Love: The Latest in the Shrine Maiden Breakup Chronicles!' Will they, or won't they? Read all about it!"

Security—that is, Alice and her well-armed army of dolls—promptly escorted Aya from the premises, on charge of promoting outside goods in a private business.

Medicine borrowed a chair, checked if it had anything magical about it like fleas or a portal to a bottomless abyss, then slouched in it. Not lunch yet, and she was exhausted. She could use a Cat-Napper.

She bolted upright when a customer approached.

"Medicine? Is that you?"

A tall girl with a thick white braid approached the counter. The way her blue and red dress fluttered, even without wind, and the way the constellation patterns in the fabric glittered like real stars...

"Eirin?" Medicine said in disbelief.

The Lunarian laughed. "It _is_ you! Phew, it's been—well, _years_. How've you been, doll? Still brewing those poisons?"

"Naturally, whenever I get the chance," said Medicine. "Though I could never keep up with your antidotes."

"Oh, you kid!" Eirin laughed loudly, but gladly lapped up the flattery. "What are you doing here?"

"Could ask you the same. Last I checked, the moon was way up there, not down here."

"Things change. You first."

"Long story short..."

Medicine glanced outside, to Marisa wearing a sandwich board with the shop's logo. The witch had conned Reimu into joining her, to which the shrine maiden drunkenly agreed. Reimu paraded in front of the shop, galumphing in the clunky sandwich board, shouting for _somebody_ to buy _something_ from the shop or else they'd blow up the puppies. She wore the sandwich board and nothing else. Soon a better idea flickered into her addled brain—now she bellowed at the top of her lungs, "Donations! Donations for the Hakurei Shrine! Wouldn't hot springs at the shrine be nice? C'mon, donations!", and kept this up till Marisa chucked a shoe at her and told her to knock it off.

"...It's a long story," Medicine finished lamely. She hardly believed half of it herself.

"Aha."

Eyeing Medicine, Eirin set a bundle of goods on the counter. "How much for these?"

Exotic seeds? Medicine gave the price.

Eirin's eyes bulged. "That's robbery!" she cried. "How can you get away with—"

"Her prices, not mine," said Medicine, maintaining a blank face. "But...for an old friend, I could arrange some sort of discount."

"I'm not _that_ old. And how much of a discount are we talking, ninety-nine percent?"

"Let's say half."

"Half, still too much. One-quarter!"

"One-third."

"Two-fifths!"

"This is getting ridiculous. Three-sevenths."

"Four-ninths!"

"Five-eights."

"Six—"

"One-third."

"Sold!" Eirin slapped the money in Medicine's hand, both angry and satisfied with her final product. Medicine counted the coins, smiling—she could damage the shop's reputation with ridiculously inflated sale prices, but at the same time she could haggle low enough that Marisa never turned a profit. Ingenious.

The sun climbed to its peak in the sky.

Medicine decided that now it was time.

"Hooray!" Su-san cried, then muffled by Medicine stuffing her hand in her pocket.

Medicine beckoned to the nearest security guards. "Shanghai. Hourai."

The dolls waddled over. "Need something?" Hourai asked in the toughest-sounding squeaks its thin voice could manage.

"Time for my break. Take over for me."

They saluted. "Okey-dokey!"

But the dolls found it took all six of them to handle what Medicine had done alone.

Meanwhile, Medicine pushed through the crowd to find Alice. The dollmaker was polishing the snowglobe display to a shine when she saw Medicine. "Something you need? Any more price checks?"

"No, no." Medicine began, "Listen, Alice, about what I asked you yesterday. Did you, um...did you figure out if...um..."

"Yes?"

This was her chance. Her last chance to ask Alice, the dollmaker, if she knew anything. Now was not the time to bungle things.

"Do you know who could have...made...me..."

"Made you what?"

Medicine winced. Bungled.

As customers piled around the shelves, Alice grew flustered. "Sorry, Medicine, but I can't chat right now. Marisa asked me to keep an eye on things, and—oh look, some genius just opened the jar of carnivorous tube socks. Sorry, I gotta—"

"Of course. Marisa." Medicine wore her brightest smile. Her pointed teeth dripped poison. "See ya around."

She went outside to get the witch.

There must be no witnesses.

Medicine called Marisa inside on some pretext or another. The witch saddled her sandwich board on Aya, who loitered outside the shop plugging her tabloids. Since it was a chilly but sunny day, Marisa wiped the sweat from her brow as she approached Medicine.

"What you need me for?"

Medicine muttered something about confidential information, for the owner's ears only. Marisa grew suspicious. Shoplifting? Harassment? When Medicine said it was about Alice, the witch instantly believed her.

They filed into Marisa's bedroom, the sheets still rumpled from the previous night. Medicine shut the door and locked it.

"All right," Marisa said, hands on her hips, making her look like a rather skinny teapot. "What's this about?" Then she noticed where they were and cracked a smile. "Could it be? Have you fallen victim to my charms as well? I admit, I knew you were special, but I've never known a doll before with _that_ kind of instinct."

"I only wanted to ask you something."

Marisa leveled her gaze. "Oh? What's that?"

Medicine held her right arm behind her back. Her fingernails grew into poisoned talons. She drew a deep breath.

"I want to know..."

The witch inclined her head.

"Whether it takes just as much as it does a human, or if it takes more poison to kill a witch."

Medicine leaped and slashed.

Marisa jumped back and instantly charged a spell. The beam flew past Medicine, blasting a bookcase. Violently gyrating, Medicine lunged. Marisa dodged, cursing, and bolted for the door. Medicine shot poison darts from her extended fingers—the needle-thin tips thudded into the wood. Marisa fiddled uselessly with the knob. With a single spell, the door splintered. Marisa sprinted, Medicine in hot pursuit.

Marisa pushed through the crowd toward the closest exit.

"Stop, thief!" Medicine yelled, loudly enough for all to hear. "Thief! Close all the doors and windows—don't let her get away!"

Most people did nothing, except prove that the Bystander Effect remained effective. The others, like trained monkeys, did what they were told—they sealed the shop, trapping Marisa with them.

"Don't listen to her!" Marisa cried, over the chatter of the confused crowd. "She's duped you! Don't you know who I am? I'm—"

Then Medicine executed her ultimate attack.

She released her stores of poison gas.

Though she admittedly recognized the unfortunate similarity to flatulence, she thought it less funny that everyone in the room would be dead within the next sixty seconds when their lungs melted.

Caught in the cloud of gas, the crowd collapsed in a cacophonous chorus of coughing. Medicine almost pitied them. Dead so young, and still so stupid.

But when the coughing devolved into raucous laughter, Medicine wondered if she were the victim of a prank. Instead of the gargling screams of the swiftly perishing, laughter. Harsh, rough, grating laughter. Medicine knew something had gone wrong.

Nitrous oxide, she thought sullenly. Laughing gas? What the hell, Su-san?

"I'm sorry!" squealed the doll in her pocket. "It was all I could find!"

Medicine snorted. No matter. Soon she'd find the witch and finish her.

Glass shattered, and a black shape ducked out the window.

"Marisa?"

Alice! Medicine cursed. The voice of her conscience.

"Marisa, where—ha-ha!—where are—ha-ha!—where are you? This isn't funny! Wah-ha-ha!"

Blocking Alice out of her mind, Medicine chased Marisa outside. The witch had grabbed a spare broom and was prepared to take off. Medicine fired a grappling hook from her kneecap—the chain wrapped around the broomstick, the curved head hooking into the wood. The rippling chain traced back to Medicine's leg. The doll yanked.

"Get over here!"

Marisa abandoned that broom and took another. Detaching the grappling hook, Medicine took flight on her stolen broom. Complex magic was beyond her capability, but any moron could fly a broom. Hell, even witches could do it!

Marisa flew away, but Medicine pursued. The witch shot back curses and spells that whizzed like fireworks as they flew by Medicine.

The broomstick chase soared high above the treetops, then plunged so low the bristles scraped the ground. Wind rushed by Medicine, flaring out her hair, snapping at her dress.

High in the sky, the witch pitched, swerved, and circled around the shop, hunkering low to her broomstick. Hapless bystanders ducked for cover as Marisa and Medicine rushed by.

"Running away?" Medicine snapped, but her words were lost to the wind. Worse, her open mouth nearly swallowed a bolt of magic lightning. But Medicine dodged and pressed on.

Finally, Medicine caught the witch by the hem of her flapping skirt. "Gotcha!"

The brooms knocked and locked together, crossed into an X. Each pushed the other up, up, and up some more. Marisa grappled Medicine, pinning her to her broom, with the sort of look that said, I'll kill myself to take you with me.

The air grew cold and thin. The witch's face turned blue. Medicine held on.

In desperation, the witch wrapped her hands around Medicine's throat. But the collar was gone. Marisa's eyes widened.

A bulge moved in Medicine's pocket. "Hey, witch!"

Su-san sprang out, collar slung over her tiny body. "Looking for this?" The collar's blue stone crackled with magical energy. Marisa dove for it, but crashed into Medicine—they fell off their brooms, which still shot up into the wispy blue.

The collar exploded.

Medicine and Marisa plummeted.

Stunned by the explosion, rushing down through the atmosphere and rapidly approaching terminal velocity, Medicine managed to fall faster than Marisa. Calmly, Medicine lay back, submitting to her fate, knowing the end to the fatal fall lay behind and beneath her.

Then she saw the witch grinning.

Aiming at her.

"MASTER SPARK!"

The beam blew by Medicine's head. It singed her hair, scorched off an ear. And blasted a hole in the Magic Shop's roof.

Medicine fell through the aperture and onto the planks with a bone-shattering crash.

Back with the peanut gallery. Completely surrounded by laughing idiots. Medicine groaned. She tried to move, but her limbs neglected to respond. Although plastic arguably cannot feel pain, Medicine experienced a sensation not unlike ultimate unpleasantness.

Marisa gently alighted on the roof at the crumbling edge of the hole she made. She cried, "Get back!" She released a blizzard of bullets—Medicine rolled aside, and they chewed through the floorboards.

Willing herself to move, Medicine thrashed through the crowd on her hands and knees. Now the witch had _her_ on the run.

Marisa leaped inside. She fired at Medicine but missed, demolishing Bob the dangling clown skeleton. Dodging the rain of smoldering bones, Medicine plucked snowglobes off the shelf, immaculately polished, and chucked them at Marisa. Each globe burst with a blast of ice, encasing everything around it in a sheet of frozen crystal. Including several customers.

The crowd panicked—worse than before, which was still pretty bad. Humans and youkai fled every which way, shoving and jostling, ramming and slamming into one another, while one rather confused ghost hovered in the middle of it all and timidly inquired what the fuss was about, and mostly of all what was so funny.

Not waiting for Marisa to recover, Medicine rummaged around in a magic trunk. She pulled out a wand with a five-pointed gold star on top of a glittering rod. Good enough. When Medicine waved the wand, every window in the shop shattered—the bookcases toppled—and the books morphed into fat green frogs. Slippery amphibians amid a panicked mob resulted in a rash of slushy pratfalls.

Spotting Medicine, Marisa fired a furious flurry of energy-bullets. With a wave of the wand, the bullets transformed into canaries. The flock fluttered around the rafters, sufficiently distracting Marisa. Medicine raised the star wand with intent to kill.

The wand would have none of that. It wilted and melted, drooped and dropped into a sad puddle on the floor. A customer fainted from the fumes—Medicine nearly fainted at the loss of her firearm.

Marisa slunk into a corner of the ceiling from which she could shoot unhindered.

Dodging the witch's cheap potshots, Medicine ran and scrabbled up the wall, clawing and swiping at the hovering witch.

On the second try, Medicine got her.

The witch and doll fell to the floor, kicking and clawing at each other. Head bent back out of reach of Medicine's teeth, Marisa pressed her palm to Medicine's forehead.

"Master S—"

"STOP!"

A pulse of magical energy swept the shop. The laughter died, the mayhem ceased. Medicine and Marisa flew apart and slammed against opposite walls.

Gaping, gasping, the crowd parted.

Alice stood in the center with her right hand aloft, the other hand clasping her grimoire. A vicious gleam shone in her sky-blue eyes. Dolls swarmed around her in an ethereal glow, brandishing real swords and spears and lances.

Marisa gibbered. To Medicine's astonishment, the witch looked absolutely terrified. "Now Alice, honey, there's no need to get angry, why don't we just put the book down and—"

"BE SILENT."

She did.

"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH," Alice boomed, supernaturally loud, "OF YOUR IMPUDENT, ARROGANT, _CHILDISH _SQUABBLES."

Her face suddenly softened. Her spells vanished, depositing Marisa and Medicine on the ground where they belonged. "Marisa," Alice said softly, "I thought you were above this level of childishness. I expected better of you. And Medicine—" The doll looked away—"I'm ashamed. To think I'd hoped you had actually changed."

Medicine and Marisa stared at each other, stung as one. They got up, brushed themselves off. Marisa was the first to approach Alice with an apology. "Look, love, I—"

"Stay back!" Alice snapped. She brandished her grimoire. "I can use every black spell in this book to transform your continued existence into utter misery, unless you listen to me right now."

Everybody listened intently.

Medicine gaped with the rest of the crowd. Could it be? Between the dollmaker and the witch, the superior magician was _Alice_?

"You claim to care about my feelings," Alice said, "but why don't you think how what you do affects my feelings? I care about _both_ of you! When you're fighting, how do you think that makes me feel?"

Marisa advanced, boots crunching on rubble and straw. She spread her arms in an open embrace. "Alice—"

"What part of _listening_ don't you understand?" Alice shrank from her touch. "I trusted you, Marisa. Respected you. Now look at you—shaming your shop, humiliating your all these people, humiliating _me_, and for what? Your petty personal quarrel? How could you be so selfish? How, Marisa?"

"To be fair, she was trying to kill—"

Alice slapped Marisa.

Medicine cringed, along with everyone else.

Whirling around, Alice turned her glare on Medicine.

"And you, Medicine," Alice continued, drawing close enough that Medicine could see the tears brimming in her eyes, "you saved Marisa's life once. I thank you for that. But never think I forgot what you are at heart—a heartless killer. But I saw more than that. That's why I took away your poison, hoping you'd see what I see." She huffed. "All the hope I put in you didn't amount to much. You turned back to your old ways as soon as I turned my back."

Medicine shifted in discomfort.

"You want me to tell you where you came from? I know enough now. I'll tell you." Alice stood erect, looming over Medicine. "There was a certain man who made a doll with a soul, a creature he grew to treasure as his own daughter. But he was wrong—she was not his daughter, no more than he was her father. Far too late, he realized what she really was. A loner, a killer. He abandoned her."

Medicine stared.

Eyes streaming, Alice continued, "But I didn't want that life for you. I had that life once, I know the pain. I took you in, thinking you could change. I was wrong. People cannot change unless they want to change. You clung to your pain, your bitterness and loneliness, like a flower clinging to a cliffside. You never wanted to change. By everything you've done, I can clearly see you're happy the way you are. Angry. Lonely."

Alice pointed to the door. "Get out."

Nobody moved.

Marisa stalked toward her, sputtering, "She's not getting away if—" But Alice silenced her with a wave.

Slow, weightless as if in a dream, Medicine stood up. She looked Alice in the eye, holding her gaze for a silent moment. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

Then Medicine set off the flash bomb.

While the crowd in the shop staggered and struggled with their temporary blindness, Medicine sneaked out unscathed.

The crowd outside the shop stared and glared, like a flock of unusually passive-aggressive sheep. They let her pass.

"Hey! Over here!"

Medicine stopped and scooped up a charred chunk that remained of a doll. Su-san coughed inexplicably. The little doll managed a smile.

"Couldn't leave without me, could you, Medicine?"

"Well, I tried." She put the doll in her pocket and went on her way unhindered.

Well, not entirely.

"STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!"

Medicine froze. She wheeled around. Had Alice—

No, not Alice.

Reimu the shrine maiden bounded after Medicine, sandwich board bouncing, along with a few other bouncy things. "You! Hold up!"

Brow furrowing, Medicine extended her poison claws.

Reimu hardly batted an eye. "You can put those away, missy. I'm not here to obliterate anyone, just to talk."

Warily, Medicine took a step back. She kept her claws out. "So? Talk."

Su-san wriggled in her pocket. "What are you waiting for? Kick her ass, Medicine!"

"In a minute."

Reimu began to talk.

"I heard the commotion in the shop. The whole reason you warmed up to Alice. Kind of cruel, wasn't it? Don't you think you went about this the wrong way?

"Why do you care so much were you came from? What does it matter who made you? You're here! You're here, you're alive, and living means you're free to do whatever you want! Why let your past get you down? There's a big, bright, beautiful future waiting ahead of you! Sure, shit happens. Deal with the consequences as much as you must. But wallowing in your mistakes won't make them go away. Move on! Do what you love! Live, and work to live better! Get busy living, or get busy dying!"

The shrine maiden paused, head cocked. "That was almost profound, wasn't it."

"Yes, almost."

Medicine lowered her blades. There was no threat to be found in this ranting drunkard. "What a shame. I already love what I do. I love being a doll. And I love living alone in a creepy cottage on a hill covered in poisonous flowers. Most of all I love killing anyone who comes too close."

She straddled one of the witch's spare broomsticks. Before she left, she cast one last look back at Reimu. "You should come sometime. Bring the witch with you."

The shrine maiden smirked. "I look forward to it."

Then Medicine took off toward home, Su-san squealing the whole way.

* * *

It started to rain before she got home. The broomstick got caught in a thundercloud, forcing Medicine to attempt a crash landing. She slogged through the storm and the mud back to her cottage, where she could be warm and dry at last.

Home. Finally she was home.

Once inside and safe from the storm, Medicine set Su-san up on the mantle, to remind her to fix the doll later. She hung up her clothes, wet and dripping, then collapsed in her chair by the fire. She picked up her book to resume her place.

Convallaria majalis_, a sweet-scented __blossom __commonly __used in folk remedies, __when ingested can cause __nausea or vomiting or..._

But for the time being, reading lost its charm on Medicine. She found herself skimming, skipping entire passages, her mind busy someplace else. Annoyed with herself, she set the book aside.

She surveyed the house by the dim firelight.

Dust. Dirt. Cobwebs in every corner, doll parts and flowerpots stacked on every available surface. Medicine Melancholy lived in a dump.

She went to get the broom.

It was good to keep a clean house.

In case she ever got visitors.


End file.
